Power Shops

As soon as Patrick Schaffer finished designing the shop of his dreams, he concluded he was already out of room. "I should have realized that you can never have enough room in a shop," the Eau Claire, Wisconsin, farmer laughs.

So Schaffer added an 18-foot-wide lean-to (shown above) running the 81-foot length along one side of his shop "for about half the cost per square foot of a new building," he says.

That extra room was put to good use to create a 32-foot-long paint room positioned at one end of the addition. "We carved out a 6Ã—6-foot room to hold the air compressor, keeping all that noise out of the main shop," he says. "The remainder of the addition -- a 56-foot-long area -- is used as cold storage and holds all the lubricants. Having that extra room makes a huge difference keeping the shop floor open for machinery."

Another way to expand your shop is to make it more efficient. "Just keeping organized can make a huge difference on shop space availability," says Paul Hargus, who farms with his father, Dwayne, near Jackson, Minnesota. "We keep floor space as open as possible with organization. We don't use the shop to store anything but tools and supplies. We have storage sheds for machinery," he says.

If you're looking to maximize your shop capacity like Schaffer and Hargus did, the following 18 suggestions can get you started. Click to the next page to find ideas that will grow your floor space inside as well as outside. Implement these farmer-tested ideas this winter.

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As soon as Patrick Schaffer finished designing the shop of his dreams, he concluded he was already out of room. "I should have realized that you can never have enough room in a shop," the Eau Claire, Wisconsin, farmer laughs.